


Of Blood and Bonds

by Magiccazza



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-14 20:44:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8028310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magiccazza/pseuds/Magiccazza
Summary: What would you do if you found out who your parents truly were? What would you do if you found out that you weren't what you thought you were your entire life? What if you found out that your bloodline belonged to the very race that you and your team are fighting against? Would you deny everything? Or would you use it to your advantage? Will you choose your family by bonds? Or will you choose your family by blood?(This is happens before s2e8. But much of it will be based on after the reunion as I planned this before season 2 came out.)





	1. Chapter 1

It kept replaying in his mind; the time he operated the Galra control panel with his own hand rather than one of the Galra sentries, Zarok’s remark about his fighting style when he faced him alone.  
“You fight like a Galra soldier.” Zarkon’s face smirked at him in his lion as his bayard formed an energy sword formed in his hand.  
“Not for long.” They were in the midst of battle, the very same one that that he had stubbornly tried to fight on his own. The fresh feeling of fear washed over him again as his lion was knocked down on her side unmoving.  
“Come on! Come on!” He desperately tried to get Red to move as panic started to set into his system. His lion was helpless as Zarkon was getting closer with his attack. Keith shut his eyes waiting for it to end; for Zarkon to end both him and his lion. Shiro was supposed to come save his skin right about now. Zarkon was getting closer yet Shiro was nowhere in sight.  
“Such a shame you fight against us. You would have been a great powerful Galra warrior.” Zarkon raised his sword above his head.

“Die.”

A scream left Keith’s throat as the black bayard was swung down on the Red lion. He bolted up right in his bed, the same scream echoing around his room. His face was covered with cold sweat as his heart pounded in his chest. Hurried footsteps were heard from outside his room. His head snapped towards the door as he heard the hiss of it opening, Relief washed over him when he recognised Shiro at the door.  
“Are you alright? I heard you scream.” Shiro asked worriedly. He was dressed in his casual black jacket. Keith remembered snatching Shiro’s gear when he was declared dead after the Kerberos disappearance. His heart rate fell back to normal when he saw a familiar face.  
“Yeah… Just a nightmare.” Keith groaned as he rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Of the battle with Zarkon when we were rescuing Allura.” He draped his arm over a knee with a frown. Shiro sighed with a frown too and sat himself gently next to the red paladin. His eyes scanned Keith’s face noticing the tiredness in his eyes.  
“This isn’t the first, time is it?” He asked quietly. “You’ve been losing sleep from the nightmares.” Keith’s gaze didn’t rise. He just stared at his dangling hand.  
“You saved my life in that fight. I never thanked you for it.” He muttered.  
“Don’t sweat it. We got separated right afterwards in that wormhole, remember?” Shiro smiled softly to try and comfort Keith. “I doubt thanking me was the priority in your mind at that moment.” Keith finally allowed himself to make eye contact with Shiro. A small smile was forced onto his lips as a form of gratitude. After a beat of silence, Shiro’s frown returned.  
“That’s not everything, is it?” He asked. Keith closed his eyes and sighted, pinching the bridge of his nose in tiredness. Shiro was the member of the team that he trusted most. After getting separated from the others in the wormhole, the two had to solely rely on each other in order to survive. With the addition of the years of friendship from before the Kerberos mission, before Shiro was captured and he gained the scar across his face and the shot of white hair from stress and experimentation from the Galra, Siro was the only member of the team that Keith knew well enough to unload his worried onto.  
“During the fight with Zarkon, he said something to me. It planted a seed in my mind and whatever it is, it keeps growing and nagging at me.” Keith began to speak his mind. “He said that I fight like a Galra soldier.” Shiro sat silently to listen to what Keith had to say.  
“Not to mention, back when we were on the Balmera, When Lance and I were stopping the fighters from leaving the hangar, I was able to operate Galra tech by myself. I didn’t use one of the soldiers’ hands to activate the handprint. And when you and Allura were on the Galra ship, I did some recon on whatever the Galra were transporting and I met some trouble with one of the cloaked people. I- I was injured but when I crashed into a container of that quintessence stuff, my wounds healed like they weren’t there in the first place.” He looked at his left hand as if it was happening again. Shiro watched and listened intently as Keith got all of his trouble off of his chest.  
“Shiro, this may sound completely ridiculous but…” He looked at the black paladin with fear in his eyes; something he wouldn’t do in front of the others in a million years. “What if all of this is telling me that I- I’m not completely human? Or part human at all?” Keith stopped as he felt Shiro’s mechanical hand rest of his shoulder.  
“Keith. First thing, breathe.” Shiro ordered. Keith only realised that his breathing was staggered as he was rambling. He took a deep breath and tried to return his breathing to normal. “Second thing, don’t worry. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a human, Altean, Galran or from some planet in between. What matters is that you’re still you. You’re still the Keith I knew for all of these years. You’re still the red paladin. If you were anything else other that you, then I would doubt that the Red lion would have picked you to be her pilot in the first place. Even Allura said that the red lion on respects people proved worthy of its trust.” Shiro could see the visible comfort in Keith’s posture.  
“You’re a member of the team regardless of what planet you’re from or what race you are. I’m sure that all of the others would agree as well.” Keith felt a weight being lifted from his shoulders at Shiro’s words.

“Thanks, Takashi.” 


	2. Chapter 2

“Paladins, we have trouble.” Allura’s voice sounded over the coms. A few hours have passed since Keith’s and Shiro’s heart-to-heart and everybody was awake and suited up in their armour. Allura stood by the controls when the five paladins entered the control room and Coran was at his usual position at the castle’s weapons control. “Zarkon’s men are surrounding the planet Kallar. They are one of the few planets in this galaxy that is not under the control of the Galra empire right now. The planet has sent out a distress signal not long ago but it looks like the Galra chip has jammed the signal. We were lucky to pick it up on our sensors.” Allura briefed as she brought up the planet onto the holographic display. Kallar looked beautiful in the image. The planet was not so different from Earth. It was a blue planet- probably their oceans- with lands of red and purple rather than the greens and browns of Earth. The team stood inspecting the planet as the princess continued with her briefing.  
“Our sensors indicate that this fleet is the only one in this galaxy. So luckily, it would take a while before back up is arrives.” Coran added as red markers indicating Galra fighter jets around the planet. Shiro stepped forwards to inspect the holographic image as it changed to the current condition. Red indicators showed the positons of the Galran fighter jets and the main command ship.  
“Looks like the fighters are spread into five groups.” He pointed to out the distribution of the red markers around the planet being in five clusters. “We’ll have to split up to take all of them down. If they reach the surface, there’s a chance they could take down Kallar’s defences.”  
“You’ll have to do it quickly at that. You’ll only have a few minutes before the commanding ship will take action. We’ll do what we can to buy you more time. But after you’ll have to get any prisoners on the ship out and take it down.” Coran brought up a blueprint of the Galra commanding battleship.  
“Keep the fighting away from Kallar as much as possible. It’ll save both lives and resources.” Shiro ordered.  
“I will send a message to the Kallarans to warn them about the upcoming battle. Kallarans are advanced in technology but they are a passive race and do not engage in combat. All they do is raise their defences.” Allura informed.  
“I can interrupt Galra communication for long enough for you to send that message.” Coran began typing and adjusting controls on the ships control board. Shiro turned back to his team.  
“Alright, Team Voltron. Let’s move out.”

“Hey, Keith.” Lance grinned into the radio in his helmet. “Don’t get yourself hurt now. I’ll have to cradle you in my arms if you do.” Keith smirked back at the comment.  
“What? You want to have another bonding moment with me?” Keith scoffed as they left the castle of lions. “Just focus on the enemy.” Lance scoffed softly at the comeback and flew into battle with Blue. The fleet was relatively simple to beat since his skills of piloting the blue lion had sharpened with every battle they fought in. Weaving past several lasers aimed at him, his lion’s mouth opened and a blue blast left every hit ship frozen in its wake.  
“Aw yeah. Nobody gets any cooler than me.” Lance grinned at what was left of the useless ships and the remaining fighter ships before dodging and blasting them out of the sky.  
“Hey, you think they don’t know we were close by or are they just stupid?” He casually asked.  
“They’ve taken over the vast majority of the known universe, Lance. I think this was just luck that they weren’t ready for our assault.” Shiro replied through his helmet.  
“But this seems… almost easy.” Pidge’s voice sounded almost worried as the team ploughed through the Galran fighters.  
“Keep your guard up. I think there’s more to this than we think.”  
“Why can’t anything ever be simple with them.” Hunk sighed. “Why can’t it ever be that they just forgot to bring back up or they forgot to charge their giant battleship or something?”  
“If only it was that simple, Hunk.” Keith ended his sentence with a grunt as a thump indicated that his lion was hit.  
“Is Keith having a hard time with his iddy biddy Galran fighters.” Lance cooed jokingly.  
“Well, I’m glad your area didn’t have as many fighters as mine does!” Keith responded sarcastically. “There seems to be more coming towards here than to your areas.”  
“Keith, do you need back up?” Shiro’s leader voice questioned in his ear. “We can fight what’s left together.”  
“I got this! Don’t worry!”

 

It was strange to say the least. All of the others had relatively few ships to fight but as soon as Keith reached his unit, more and more ships were sent to his area.  
“Come on, Red. We can do this.” He murmured quietly to his lion. He was grateful that the red lion the faster, more agile of the five. He ducked and weaved around the oncoming lasers and retaliated with blasts of his own. The laser melted through the ships which promptly exploded afterwards. The fight lasted much longer than he wanted or expected.  
“Alright! Looks like I’m done here!” he sighed, glad that the fleet was taken down. “Let’s regrou-” He stopped short of his sentence when he turned around.  
“Um, guys. Didn’t Coran say that it’ll take a while for them to send another fleet?” Keith asked as he stared wide eyed at the oncoming fleet. He could hold them off until the others arrived but not for long. His grip tightened on Red’s controls as he clenched his jaw. Before he could launch himself into the heat of another battle, a looming shadow covered him and the ground beneath him.  
“Oh no…” he uttered. “Guys, we have a second warship coming n hot. Turns out the once already here wasn’t the only one in this sector of the Galaxy.”  
“Shiro! What’s our plan?” Pidged asked  
“Take both ships on, guns blazing and return to the castle before one of Hunk’s homemade dinners?” Lance suggested. Keith rolled his eyes at the stupid smirk on Keith’s face.  
“And get gunned down individually? No thanks. Have you forgotten what happened when we went to rescue Allura?” He frowned.  
“Hey, I wasn’t the one stupid enough to take on Zarkon alone.” Lance smug grin retaliated. Keith scoffed as he clenched his jaw at the memory. He noticed that the other lions have arrived at his location.  
“We’ll have to attack them one at a time.” Shiro interrupted the arguing duo.  
“What about Kallar? They’ll have less defences against all those fighter ships.” Pidge asked as the lion flew back into formation. She looked down at the planet in worry.  
“We’ll have to pick them off after we get rid of the command ships.” Shiro replied as the lions dodged oncoming laser blasts.  
“What about the prisoners?” Keith asked as he glanced up at the overseeing command ship.  
“The ships sensors are picking up only one non Galran lifeforms on the ship in front of you. The other doesn’t seem to have any prisoners on board.” Allura informed from the castle of lions currently in orbit around Kallar.  
“We would help but there are still too many fighter ships around the castle for us to protect the Kallarans from here.”  
“Princess Allura, this is Koria speaking for Kallar.” An unfamiliar voice joined the feed. “I have a team from the Planet Seruna. We crashed here four Kallaran months ago. They have fixed our fighter ships. We can provide assistance.”  
“That would certainly help our current situation.” Allura smiled in relief. “Thank you, friend. Paladins, the ground is covered.”  
“Good. Then we get that prisoner and take out the commanding ships.” Shiro took command again. “Keith, you’re the fastest of us. Go in get the prisoner out and get out. Hunk, you provide primary cover for the red lion. The rest of us will take care of the ships heading towards Keith’s lion. Once they’re out, we take this thing down.”  
“Roger that.” Keith responded with a confident smirk on his face.  
“Alright!” Hunk followed as he directed his lion towards fighter ships.  
“Copy!” Pidge grinned as the green lion fired the blaster on its tail towards several Galra jets.  
“Alright! Let’s do this!” Lance hollered as he manoeuvred his lion to the fighter ships.

 

The last time Shiro had seen so many ships together were at Zarkon’s ground control, but this pales in comparison of intensity. Activating the black lion’s jaw blades, he deftly flew between the ships heading towards Red and Yellow leaving a trail of explosions in his wake. He stared at the Galran commanding ship in concern.  
“Why only one single prisoner?” He uttered to himself. Before he could ponder the answer, fighter ships caught his attention; they were not Galra purple and were taking down the Galra troops.  
“Apologies, I hope I didn’t steal your thunder, Shiro.” Koria’s voice spoke through his helmet.  
“How do you-?” He cut of his question to take out some more fighter ships.  
“You’re the one that my sister and I help escape three Kallaran movements ago.” Koria answered with no need of Shiro finishing his question. “We’ll speak of this later. Let’s first focus on the task at hand.” A fellow escapee from the Galra prison? He’ll have to think about it later, he had to keep the fleet of fighter ships from Keith and Hunk.

 

Getting in was simple if not worrying. The ship had a control board on the exterior that allowed him inside of one of the air locks. The worrying part was that he opened it himself. Keith pushed the thought to the back of his mind as he focused on finding the prisoner without alerting the sentries. He reached the cells.  
“Hey, is anyone there?” He called out as to not alert the enemy. He heard movement from behind the third cell door. On the right. Holding his bayard tight on guard for any Galra soldiers sneaking up on him, he laid his hand over the control panel and the doors opened with a hiss. Looking inside the third cell door, a lady was curled up in her knees ready to pounce. Her eyes, black as the start lit skies narrowed at the open cell door, the white skin on her jaw tightened. Keith’s eyes instantly homed in on her left arm and right leg; both replaced with Galra cybernetic limbs.  
“It’s alright. I’m here to get you out.” He said calmly, the tension instantly loosening from her body.  
“Thank you.” Her voice was mature. For an alien, she looked quite human except only for her white features and white hair. Keith nodded at her thanks and let her out from her cell.  
“We’ll get you an escape pod. You’ll be able to get to Kallar; they can help you.” He informed as the two of them ran for the escape pod. Once they reached the pods, the lady started typing on the close by control panel.  
“You’ve… done this before, haven’t you?” Keith looked genuinely surprised at the lady. “You know how to operate this.”  
“My first two attempts at escape managed to get only my sister and an Earthling out. They caught me both times before I could join them.” She explained and she finished up typing and the doors to the escape pods opened.  
“Stop right there!” The two of them started at the sound of sentries. Four had spotted them.  
“Go! I’ll hold them off!” Keith instructed as his bayard took its sword form. He ducked and parried the enemy’s attack and countered with a practiced swing of his blade slicing two sentried across the torso revealing the Galran circuitry inside. He glanced at the escape pod relieved that the pod doors were closing with the lady inside. He quickly pressed the pod release button and watched the escape pod leave. Smiling in satisfaction he turned and sliced through the last two, he quickly ran back towards his lion. He was so close before he skidded to a halt as the ship’s commander stepped out in front of him.  
“Emperor Zarkon was right. There Is Galra blood in the paladins.” He mused as if to himself.  
“I’m not Galra. I’m a paladin of Voltron!” Keith growled as he drew his sword. This as the last thing he needed to worry about right now.  
“Oh no, boy.” The commander chuckled. “You are no doubt a paladin of Voltron, but you do have the blood of a Galra soldier in you. My name is commander Harkrow, I only bring a message for you from Emperor Zarkon himself, Red Paladin.” Harkrow made no move to attack nor were there any sentries or Galra soldiers approaching; but Keith knew better than to let his guard down. He couldn’t be part Galra. He was human! He grew up on Earth! He wasn’t part of this ruthless race! His family-! He never knew his birth family.  
“He would like to invite you to join our ranks.” Harkrow finished. Keith was speechless.  
“And betray my fellow paladins?! Not in a billion yea-!” He growled until he was cut off by Harkrow’s raised hand.  
“It’s a one-time offer. He expects you to think about it. When you have an answer, contacted me with this.” He threw over a small purple device with only one button. Keith eyed it suspiciously and glared at the commander. “No need to fret. It’s not tracked. I made sure of it.” He chuckled bemusedly.  
“Keith? Are you okay in there, buddy?” Keith’s glare was cut off by Lance’s voice through his helmet.  
“Yeah, I’m on my way out. I just got held up.” Keith replied as he began to pick up the pace again back towards his lion.  
“Think hard, boy. You could have a family by blood and they would survive this war.” Harkrow said after him. Keith tried to tuned out the Galra commander and carried on running to Red. Without any resistance, he was able to board Red and join the others in the battle.  
“Oh thank god you’re okay.” Hunk sighed.  
“You okay, Keith?” You took longer than expected in there.” Shiro’s concern voice asked as Keith and Hunk regrouped with the other three paladins.  
“Guys, Look!” Pidge’s call diverted everyone’s attention to the ship Keith was just on. As suddenly as it arrived, it switched into hyper drive and left the scene.  
“You think they realise how unbeatable we are and ran away?” Lance asked in a small amount of humour, his grin evident through the feed.  
“It’s not how the Galra work.” Shiro frowned. “They must have got what they came here for.”  
“Recon?” Keith suggested knowing full well what the ship’s objective was.  
“On such a big ship? I highly doubt it.” Pidge answered. The fleet was still attacking but now with all five paladins gathered together, the fight was perfectly in their favour.  
“Maybe it’s the prisoner? Maybe they set an ambush?” Hunk put his own suggestion in.  
“No, the prisoner definitely couldn’t. She already tried twice to escape and from the way that the sentries there didn’t hesitate to attack her, she couldn’t be a spy or anything like that. She knew Shiro on a personal level after the two previous escape attempts.”  
“What was her name?” Shiro asked.  
“Didn’t get the chance to ask. She was humanoid, white skin, eyes and cybernetic arm and leg.” Keith replied.  
“That’s Arina” Koria’s voice piped in on the feed. “She knew how to work the control panels, right?”  
“Yeah. She was pretty good at it as well.” Keith heard the Serunan lady audibly sigh. Judging from that, the prisoner wasn’t allied with the Galra.  
“Well, whatever the reason, we’ll have to deal with it later. We have a warship to take down. Koria, you and your men can take care of the remaining fighter ships, right?”  
“Yes sir.” Koria replied before the white fighters diverted their routes towards the Galra fleet.  
“Paladins, the command ship’s readying it’s ion cannon. The castles defences can’t take more than one hit from it.” Allura’s voice warned over the sound of lasers hitting the particle barrier on the  catle of lions.  
“Alright, team! Let’s form Voltron!” Shiro’s strong voice led the others.  
“Yeah!” The other four responded in tandem.

Flying in sync, each lion transformed into their respective parts of the might weapon. The black lion’s claws straightened by its side and it’s back legs folded in creating the body. The red and green lion retracted their legs and joined onto the sides of the body to form the arms. Finally, the blue and yellow lion transformed into the legs of Voltron. The jaw of the black lion opened revealing the face of the defender of the universe. A bright purple orb grew on the Galra ship’s ion cannon but before it had a chance to be fired, the canon was sliced cleanly in half. Voltron stood with its plasma sword in hand.  
“Aw yeah! Voltron rules!” Lance cheered through the feed.  
“Now let’s take down this battleship!” Shiro smiled. “Shoulder cannon!”  
“Right!” Hunk responded as the sword vanished and a great cannon form on Voltron’s right shoulder. The barrel started to emit light as it was charged.  
“Fire!” On Shiro’s word, a beam of light burst from the cannon and through the ship. After a beat, the Galra ship burst into flames in a fantastic explosion.  
“Whoo! Yeah!” Keith laughed. “Hey Lance. You’re not hurt are you?”  
“Ha. Ha.” Lance sarcastically replied with a chuckle. Keith’s smile disappeared as he looked at the small Galran device he pulled out of his pocket and frowned. He wouldn’t need the Galra as family, would he? The team were enough of a family he’ll ever needed.  
“Alright team, let’s get back to the castle. We can talk about everything when we land.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment if you enjoyed. Please make this a hate free work.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment if you enjoyed. Please make this a hate free work.


End file.
